San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee speaks at the rally celebrating the 60th Anniversary of St. Anthony's, a non profit group that provides shelter, housing, and food to those less fortunate, in San Francisco, Calif., on Saturday, Sept. 24, 2011. He officially named Saturday, September 24 "St. Anthony's Day" in San Francisco.

Photo: Dylan Entelis, The Chronicle

San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee speaks at the rally celebrating the 60th...

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Mayoral candidate Ed Lee speaks to the media as he greets supporters as he opens his campaign headquarters on Market Street on August 20, 2011 in San Francisco, Calif. Photograph by David Paul Morris/Special to the Chronicle

San Francisco -- With friends like these, Mayor Ed Lee doesn't have to worry about attack ads. His buddies are killing him with "help."

The quickie unauthorized biography, "The Ed Lee Story: An Unexpected Mayor," is a disaster. It's not just that it is cornball writing and ham-fisted boosterism. The troubling part is that it lays the groundwork to make a direct connection between the official Ed Lee for Mayor campaign and the independent funding group that spent $88,748.66 to publish the book, yet can't tell us who is financing them.

By law independent expenditure committees must be completely separate from a candidate's campaign. But are you really saying that the biography was produced completely without your knowledge? The book is full of personal photos and stories about Lee. Worse yet, Lee's wife, Anita, was spotted signing copies, which just about completes the circle.

The explanation from Lee's camp is that this is the first time he has run for political office so he's a little naive. That doesn't cut it. A little naive is expecting the mayoral debates to be a civilized discussion of the issues. This looks downright shady.

"Whenever someone says the book is paid for but I have no idea who paid for it, it makes my skin crawl," said a political consultant who does not represent a candidate for mayor. "They're basically daring people to catch him."

Now, here's the funny part. Nearly everyone thinks, barring a monumental gaffe, Lee will still win. Conventional wisdom says that as bad as this book looks, even the financial donations to Lee's campaign funneled through Go Lorrie's Airport Shuttle - where Go Lorrie's employees made $500 donations to the campaign and were allegedly told they would be reimbursed - charges like this are very difficult to prove.

Even these errors of judgment by his "friends" are probably not going to sink him.

So some political advisers say Lee should ride this out and not address the issue.

That's not the right thing to do.

The best option, although painful, is to step up and make a public statement that lays it out.

"I am new to politics," Lee should say. "But these actions by my 'friends' have crossed the line. This book was a mistake. So were the campaign donations from Go Lorrie's. I know that. And I just want to say that it ends now. It won't happen again in this campaign, and it won't happen when I become mayor."

When Lee decided to run, someone probably told him he wouldn't have to be a politician. He could just float above the fray, keep doing a good job for the city, pick and choose which debates to attend, and let the other candidates cut each other to shreds.

It doesn't work like that. Eventually everyone is pulled into the messy, unpleasant process. Lee's opponents are certainly in attack mode.

State Sen. Leland Yee, who bristled at The Chronicle's editorial board meeting when asked about negative ads, has an independent expenditure group, "City Residents Supporting Leland Yee for Mayor 2011," that has sent out mailers that say, among other things: "Same old bull-" and "The Republican Party is supporting Ed Lee for Mayor."

Dennis Herrera's TV ads show Lee associating with "power broker" Rose Pak and wearing a Republican campaign button. "Ed Lee is getting it done," the ad says, "For his friends and contributors, not for us."

You haven't seen anything yet. In the next month the big bucks will really start to flow from the independent expenditure committees. Opponents will hammer Lee.

He can handle that. Polls show that when candidates go on the offensive against Lee, it hasn't moved the needle much.

What will hurt him are clumsy attempts to help by his "friends." He needs to tell them publicly to knock it off.